The governor’s headline number reflects avoided increases under a regional price cap—not lower electric bills—and leaves out billions in costs tied to the same auction.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Gov. Wes Moore announced this week that the results of PJM’s latest capacity auction “saved ratepayers $13.3 billion” across the region, crediting his administration’s “aggressive actions” on energy affordability. The Maryland Democratic Party amplified the claim on social media, pairing it with a quote from the governor: “Our administration refuses to allow corporations to pad their pockets while Marylanders shoulder the cost with no return on investment.”
The $13.3 billion figure is real. It’s also not entirely Moore’s to claim.
The $13.3 billion figure is real. It’s also not entirely Moore’s to claim, it doesn’t mean anyone’s bill went down, and it was announced the same day, from the same auction, as a very different number Moore’s press release didn’t mention at all.
In plain English: A price cap isn’t a discount. It’s a ceiling on how much worse an already-rising cost is allowed to get. Capacity prices have climbed in every PJM auction since 2023 — from $28.92 per megawatt-day to $325 today, roughly an elevenfold increase — and the “savings” Moore announced this week measure only how much higher that number might have climbed without the cap in place. They don’t measure any drop from where prices already stood. Nobody’s bill went down because of this announcement. The increase was simply capped short of where it might otherwise have landed.
A price cap isn’t a discount. It’s a ceiling on how much worse an already-rising cost is allowed to get.
Nobody’s bill went down because of this announcement.
The Number Checks Out — As Far As It Goes
PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator, announced the results of its 2028/2029 capacity auction on July 14. The auction cleared at $325 per megawatt-day — the maximum allowed under a price cap PJM adopted after 2025’s price spikes, and only a 2.5 percent decrease from the prior auction’s $329.17 ceiling. Total value of the capacity procured: $16.4 billion, covering more than 67 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C.
Prices can set new records every year—and still be counted as ‘savings.’
The $13.3 billion “savings” figure is the modeled gap between that capped price and what economists estimate the auction would have cleared at without the cap in place. That’s a legitimate way to measure a price control’s effect. It is not evidence that costs went down — it’s evidence that a rising cost didn’t rise as far as it otherwise might have. Under this framing, prices can set new records every year, as they have since 2023, and still be counted as “savings,” because the number being compared against is a hypothetical, not last year’s bill.
Whose Win Is It, Really?
Moore is one of 13 PJM-region governors, and he isn’t the only one claiming credit for this exact number. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office issued its own release the same week attributing the identical $13.3 billion figure to “the extension of his settlement with PJM Interconnection” — the legal action Shapiro’s administration negotiated with PJM starting in late 2024, before Maryland joined a coalition of governors backing the price cap’s extension in early 2026.
Both governors are technically accurate: the price cap is a multi-state mechanism that both administrations supported. But Moore’s press release and the Maryland Democratic Party’s post frame the $13.3 billion as a result of “our aggressive actions” — without noting that Pennsylvania’s governor is making the identical claim about the identical dollars, rooted in a legal settlement Maryland didn’t file.
What Got Left Out
Here is the part missing from Moore’s announcement entirely: PJM’s own independent market monitor, Joseph Bowring, told reporters the same day the auction results were released that roughly $6.3 billion of the $16.4 billion in capacity value procured was directly attributable to data center electricity demand — across Maryland and the other PJM states.
That figure comes from the same auction, the same day, the same regional grid operator Moore’s press release cites as the source of the $13.3 billion savings claim. It didn’t appear in the governor’s release. A reader relying only on Moore’s announcement would have no way of knowing that the auction being celebrated as a $13.3 billion win also came with an independently estimated $6.3 billion cost increase tied to the same demand growth the governor’s own December 2025 executive order was written to address.
The Bigger Story Nobody’s Telling
Moore’s quote criticizes corporations that “pad their pockets while Marylanders shoulder the cost with no return on investment.” That’s a fair standard — and it’s one this outlet has already found Maryland’s own energy regulators failing to apply consistently elsewhere.
Earlier this month, MDBayNews reported that federal regulators approved a $180 million annual payment to Talen Energy to keep two Anne Arundel County power plants — Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner — running, over the formal objection of Maryland’s own ratepayer advocate. FERC’s own technical staff calculated the plants’ actual operating costs at $97.3 million a year — 86 percent less than what was approved. Talen told federal regulators the deal was bare-bones cost recovery; the company told Wall Street investors, in the same period, that the same deal would deliver more than $110 million a year in pure profit.
A $13.3 billion regional press release is a much easier story to tell than an $83 million annual overcharge on a deal Annapolis had a hand in approving.
That deal was signed off on by the Maryland Public Service Commission — the same commission answerable to Moore’s administration — and it has never appeared in any of the governor’s public statements about protecting ratepayers from corporate profit-padding. A $13.3 billion regional press release is a much easier story to tell than an $83 million annual overcharge on a deal Annapolis had a hand in approving.
Sourcing
The $13.3 billion figure and accompanying quote are drawn from Gov. Wes Moore’s July 15, 2026 press release and reporting on it. PJM auction results, including the $325/MW-day clearing price and $16.4 billion total procurement value, are drawn from PJM Interconnection’s July 14, 2026 announcement. The $6.3 billion data center cost estimate is attributed to Joseph Bowring, president of Monitoring Analytics (PJM’s independent market monitor), as reported the same week. Gov. Shapiro’s competing claim to the same $13.3 billion figure is drawn from a Pennsylvania governor’s office press release issued the same week. Figures on the Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner RMR settlement are drawn from this outlet’s prior reporting, “Paying Twice: The Federal Deal Costing Maryland Ratepayers Hundreds Of Millions For Two Anne Arundel Power Plants” (MDBayNews, July 12, 2026), which is itself sourced to FERC Docket Nos. ER24-1787 and ER24-1790.
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